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Lab 4: Creating a Solution for Your Agent

Lab Title

Creating a Solution for Your Agent - Power Platform ALM

Lab Objectives

By the end of this lab, you will be able to:

  1. Understand what Power Platform solutions are and their purpose
  2. Explain the benefits of using solutions for agent development
  3. Create a solution publisher with proper naming conventions
  4. Create a custom solution for your agent
  5. Understand the solution lifecycle from development to production

Prerequisites

  • Microsoft 365 account with Copilot Studio access
  • Power Platform environment with appropriate permissions
  • One of these security roles: Environment Maker, System Customizer, or System Administrator
  • Developer environment (created in Course Setup)

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Understanding Solutions (~10 minutes)

  1. Review what a Power Platform solution is:
    • Container for apps, agents, tables, flows
    • Essential for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
  2. Understand solution types:
    • Unmanaged: Used during development, freely editable
    • Managed: Used for deployment, locked down

Step 2: Benefits of Using Solutions (~5 minutes)

  1. Organized development: Keep agent components in one place
  2. Safe deployment: Export as managed for production
  3. Version control: Create patches, updates, or upgrades
  4. Dependency management: Track component relationships
  5. Team collaboration: Work together effectively

Step 3: Understanding Solution Publishers (~5 minutes)

A publisher is a critical component of Power Platform solutions that represents the organization or entity responsible for creating and maintaining solutions.

What is a Publisher?

  • A publisher acts as a label or brand for ownership of your solutions and components
  • It identifies who created and is responsible for the solution
  • Every solution must have a publisher associated with it
  • Organizations typically create one publisher per team or department

The Prefix System

  • A prefix is a unique identifier added to all custom components in your solution
  • Example: If your prefix is cts_, all components will be named like cts_agentname, cts_flowname, etc.
  • The prefix helps avoid naming conflicts when importing multiple solutions
  • It makes it easy to identify which solution a component belongs to

Why Prefixes Matter

  1. Identification: Quickly identify components by their prefix (e.g., cts_ = Contoso Solutions)
  2. Conflict Prevention: Prevents duplicate component names when importing multiple solutions
  3. ALM Tracking: Makes it easier to track and manage components across environments
  4. Team Organization: Different teams can use different prefixes for their solutions

Example

  • Company: Contoso
  • Publisher name: Contoso Solutions
  • Prefix: cts (derived from company name and solutions type)
  • Sample component: cts_HelpdeskAgent, cts_ITSupportPrompt

This naming convention ensures that even if another organization creates a component with the same name, the prefixes prevent conflicts and confusion across your Power Platform environments.

Step 4: Create a Solution Publisher (~10 minutes)

  1. Navigate to Copilot Studio

  2. Select ... → Solutions alt text

  3. Select + New solution alt text

  4. Select + New publisher alt text

  5. Configure publisher properties:

    • Display name: Contoso Solutions

    • Name: ContosoSolutions

    • Description: Tertiary Infotech Copilot Studio

    • Prefix: cts

    • Choice value prefix: Round to nearest thousand (e.g., 77000)

      alt text

  6. Optionally add contact information under contact tab alt text

  7. Save the publisher

Step 5: Create a Custom Solution (~10 minutes)

  1. Under the New solution pane that appears after you save the publisher, configure solution properties:

    • Display name: Contoso Helpdesk Agent
    • Name: ContosoHelpdeskAgent
    • Publisher: Select the publisher you just created
    • Version: `

  2. Select your new publisher

  3. Configure solution details:

    • Display name: Contoso Helpdesk Agent
    • Name: ContosoHelpdeskAgent
    • Version: 1.0.0.0 (default for new solutions)

  4. Check Set as your preferred solution alt text

  5. Select Create

  6. The solution for Contoso Helpdesk Agent has now been created. There will be zero components until we create an agent in Copilot Studio. alt text

  7. Press on the back arrow icon to verify solution appears in Solution Explorer alt text

    alt text

Duration

~45 minutes

Next Steps

Proceed to Lab 5: Using a Pre-Built Agent